Internet price decreasing on 3 levels: Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb

Special assistant to the Chief Adviser for the ministry of posts, telecommunication and information technology, Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb has stated that the price of internet is decreasing on three new levels. In this context, he has called upon the private mobile operators of the country to decrease the price of their internet.

Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb stated this in a post published on his Facebook account Monday morning.

He wrote that the Fiber@Home management has confirmed the news. They will cut down the price by 10 per cent at the ITC level, another 10 per cent at IIG level and by 15 per cent at the NTTN level. When contacted Fiber@Home authorities from Prothom Alo in this regard they confirmed that they have decided to decrease the price.

Faiz Ahmad wrote in his post, that earlier the association of companies with ISP license has guaranteed to provide 10 MBPS internet for Tk 500. And before that, Bangladesh submarine cable company reduced their price by a total of 20 per cent including 10 per cent for all IIG and ISP customers and an additional 10 per cent for the wholesale customers. With this, initiatives have been taken to reduce the price of internet services on three to four levels in phases.

In this context, Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb has called upon three private mobile operators of the country to reduce their prices.

He wrote in this regard, the only thing left is for the three private mobile service providing companies to announce price reduction. 

The government has already provided the mobile companies with dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) and dark fiber facilities. In this situation, the private mobile companies do not have any sort of rationality or excuse left for not reducing their internet prices.

Faiz Ahmad further wrote that the government has provided policy support to the mobile operators. The government has also reduced the internet price on wholesale at the international and national levels with government and private initiatives. 

Now it is their turn to be a part of the national initiative. With the step of reducing mobile internet prices the ongoing high inflation will also decrease to some extent, he hoped.

The chief adviser’s special adviser also mentioned that government mobile operator company Teletalk has announced a 10 per cent price reduction from the day of the Eid-ul-Fitr.  

He continued, the government hopes that the three private mobile operators will soon announce a very reasonable reduction in their mobile internet prices. The government expects two types of price reductions here.

Firstly, the mobile operators will reduce the price hike in March due to SRO adjustments. The government has retraced their decision to increase taxes but the mobile operators did not reduce the added charges accordingly.

And, secondly the price of internet will decrease at the consumer level in proportion to the reduction in wholesale price at the International Gateway/ITC, IIG and National Transmission levels.

Faiz Ahmad also commented that there are a lot of questions regarding the standard of mobile internet in Bangladesh. The price is lot higher compared to the standard. Under this circumstance, the government is committed to take reasonable steps in the interest of the consumers.